


th(ink)

by candyheartschocolatedreams



Series: Kitty Kat Tats AU [1]
Category: Game Grumps
Genre: Gen, Tattoos, self-indulgent tattoo AU, septiplier if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-04
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-20 02:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7386769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candyheartschocolatedreams/pseuds/candyheartschocolatedreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark gets a tattoo.</p>
            </blockquote>





	th(ink)

**Author's Note:**

> note: I have never actually been tattooed myself, and this AU is based on countless hours of scrolling through tattoo blogs and watching people's experiences on YouTube. please pardon any inaccuracies.

Sean was shaking, portfolio damp in his sweaty hands.

He’d traveled thousands of miles for this. Drawn hundred of hours. Said dozens of goodbyes.

And here he was. Standing in front of the imposing double doors of Kitty Kat Tats.

Wiishu had helped him to pick out what he was wearing: neatly tied black Converse, his nicest pair of jeans, and a muscle top that showed off the curling scroll of green down his arm. She’d kissed him on the cheek and given him a double thumbs up on his way out the door. ( _Good luck, Jack!_ )

For all the Irish blood running through his veins, Sean had never felt less lucky or shaky in his life. He rubbed at his wrist. Usually they were covered in bracelets, but he’d wanted to look professional. Was there really a way to look professional? Was he doing this right? He’d worked at Stinkeye for over three years as an apprentice, and built an impressive portfolio of his sketches and ink. Mythical monsters with dozens of eyes, snarling beasts with acid saliva dripping from their jaws, and his favorite: a half sleeve of clovers, done in dozens of shades of green. He should have no reason to feel so damn nervous.

“Hey, dude, you gonna come in?”

“Fuck! Ah, ye. Just a...little...erm.” Sean didn’t know how to put it into words. _I’m standing in front of the doors of one of the greatest tattoo parlors on the west coast and for some reason I’m not knocking down the doors to get inside._

“Uh...are you getting a tattoo?”

Sean blinked once and snapped back to reality. “Nah. I’m applying for an apprenticeship here.” He motioned to his portfolio with his free hand.

The man’s face brightened. “Sweet! My wife actually co-owns the place with me. I’m Arin. It’s real good to meet ya!”

“Good to meet you too, Mr. Arin.” Sean said. He was talking to Arin. Husband of Suzy. Suzy Berhow. The best artist at Kitty Kat. Oh my feckin’ God.

“Chill on the formalities. It’s just Arin and Suzy. Though Suzy sometimes likes to freak out apprentices by making them call her Mistress Mortemer.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard.” _From the countless hours I’ve scrolled through forums and admired her work...shite, Jack, focus._

“Well, then you probably know what to expect. Come on in! I love your sleeve, by the way,” Arin said, pulling the door open.

“Hey douchebag, a dude just called and canceled on his appointment!” A man with big frizzy hair called from over by a workstation.

“Fuck!” Arin cried, sounding pissed and yet brilliantly happy at the same time, and Jack knew he’d found home.

_A year and a half later..._

“Hey Jack, wanna grab some lunch? There’s this new bubble tea place that just opened on the strip,” Kevin said. He was Kitty Kat’s resident piercing artist. It had been a little disconcerting at first to talk to Kevin, because he was never sure where on Kevin’s face he should focus. (The septum piercing, the canine bites, the industrial piercing, the stretched ears, the eyebrow piercing?) Sean liked him, though he did have a bad habit of falling asleep between appointments. He was a damn fine piercer, though.

“Nah, I’ve got an appointment in fifteen. Grab me sometin’ while you’re out?”

“Sure,” Kevin replied, sticking his keys and his wallet in his pocket. He walked out the door, holding it open for a tall, nervous-looking man.

Jack fiddled with one of the bracelets on his wrist, watching as the man stopped to talk to Barry, the receptionist. Barry pointed at him and Jack started. This must be his next appointment! Jack stopped messing with his wrists and smiled. He’d been emailing this man for a few days, and they’d finally worked out a nice design for his first tattoo: a photorealistic pink mustache. It always gave him a buzz to know he’d be bringing another person into the incredible world of ink.

 

Mark was shaking, wallet damp in his sweaty hands.

He’d always admired the bold audacity of tattoos; as a kid, he’d stop to admire bright flash tattoos screaming out of store windows. If he saw someone sporting some ink on the street, he couldn’t help but stare.

So why was he so godamn nervous?

Sean (‘Jackaboy’ for short, he had said) was brilliant. Mark had stumbled across one of his pieces on a late-night internet binge: a half sleeve of a field of brilliant clovers, dozens of shades of green. Mark had gotten hooked on the realism from the start. One Google search lead to another, and soon he’d emailed Sean, and then he’d actually _emailed back_ , and that was why he was trembling, legs spread, in a plush chair in Los Angeles.

“Ye alright?” Jack (it felt a bit weird calling him that) said. He was setting up the tattoo gun, pouring bright inks from squeeze bottles into tiny cups.

“Yeah, just a bit nervous...damn, you’d think after planning this for so long I’d be less of a pussy,” Mark said, laughing weakly.

“Nah, yer alright. I once had a man--biiiiig burly type, had a massive beard--come in for a sleeve and start bawling before I even laid the stencil down.”

“Wow. Guess looks aren’t everything.”

Jack nodded. “An’ Kevin? The lad who ya passed on your way in...”

“I thought he’d bite me,” Mark admitted.

“Nah, he’s too feckin’ lazy for that. He’s a big ball o’ fluff. Not a mean bone in his body.” Mark watched as Jack applied what looked like a sticker on his shoulder. “I’m puttin’ down the linework for yer ‘stache. You picked a nice place. Some people come in without an inch of ink on ‘em and expect me to put _bite me_ on their knuckles.”

“You should bite them instead,” Mark suggested cheerfully.

“I’ve considered it,” Jack said, dead serious. Both of them burst into laughter.

They made small talk as Jack took his sweet time with the preparations. He could tell Mark was nervous, but after a few minutes, he was loose and relaxed. A slight smirk curled at the corner of his mouth, and he looked perfectly at home in the shop. Which meant it was time to start.

“Arright, ye ready? It’s going to hurt a bit, but you can do it.”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Mark said, but Sean noticed how his hands clutched the armrests.

“Okay, just breathe in, an’ out. Hope you didn’t steel yer nerves with anythin’, otherwise you’re gonna bleed like a stuck pig.”

“Can’t. Heart condition.”

“Really? Wow. You sure this is a good idea, then?”  
Something in Mark’s face darkened, and Jack wanted to melt into the floor. He’d always been better with a pencil and paper than people. And Mark had been so open with him, too--

But Mark gave a weak chuckle and shook his head. “It's not as bad as you might think. This is probably safer than what I do for work, anyway.”

“Do ye skydive?” Jack asked.

Mark laughed. “I wish. I play video games. Markiplier’s my channel name. It sounds really ridiculous, but it’s definitely shaped me as a person and I wouldn’t be here without it.”

“That’s incredible,” Jack said. He and Mark had briefly discussed the inspiration behind the mustache, but hearing him say it in person confirmed it. Mark loved what he did. And it really was incredible, how much passion and heart he put into it. Jack had felt the same way when he had first picked up a pencil. That was why he drew, and tattooed; it kept him from going insane some days. He loved all the quirks and the joy he got from bringing people’s beautiful ideas to life, permanently.

“Yeah, I guess it is,” Mark said, a faint blush staining his cheeks. “But really, I’m one to talk about love for work. You traveled all the way from Ireland. Like, fuck, man. Do you know how ballsy you were to do that? And look where it got you.”

“Tattooin’ ‘Mom’ on some biker dude’s ass,” Jack said, laughing. “But yeah, I love tattooin’--an’ tattoo culture and art n’ shit--that much. It’s just so cool, y’know?”

“Definitely. There was this bar not far from my house when I was, like, sixteen. My mom didn’t like me hanging out there, but I went anyway just so I could watch some dude tattoo flaming skulls and stuff through the window.”  
“You definitely picked a good place to start. Suzy’s fookin’ incredible, and so is everybody here.”

“Yeah...maybe one day I’ll come back to add on,” Mark said. Jack couldn’t tell how serious he was, but he beamed nonetheless.

“Awwww, that just gave me the warm fuzzies, all the way down to me dick.”

“It’s a talent,” Mark smirked.

Their conversation was all over after that; Mark was an interesting person, and even after the tattoo was finished and Jack was cleaning up, they kept talking about video games and the outdoors and dogs and _everything_. Sean hoped Mark would come back. He was a good tattoo subject and an even better person. Which is why his heart twinged a bit when he said,

“Well, yer all done.”

“Really?” Mark looked surprised. “I barely felt it.”

“Here, ya wanna see?” Jack angled a mirror so Mark could see his back.

Mark was silent for a few minutes. The store clock gobbled up seconds. Arin and Dan were arguing over who’s dick would win in a fight.

Then a huge grin split his face. His eyes shimmered through hundreds of emotions--shock, joy, satisfaction, pride--

“Holy SHIT, I love it!!” Mark cackled with glee and tackled Sean in a hug. Sean couldn’t breathe, he was squeezing so hard. Mark spun him around the shop, barely missing Kevin, who was piercing the septum of a lanky teen.

“Jeezus, easy there,” Sean wheezed.

After an eternity, Mark set Sean down. There were tears pricking in the corners of his eyes, and his voice trembled when he said, “Thank you.”

He left a huge tip and a warm feeling in Sean’s gut long after the shop had closed and he was back in his apartment, doodling mustaches on a takeout napkin. He stretched and decided to shit around on the Internet for a bit, maybe find something for him and Wiishuu to do, seeing as he hadn’t booked any appointments for the next day. He powered up his laptop and opened his email to check the weekly schedule Suzy sent everyone at Kitty Kat.

The warm feeling burst into a flame when Sean saw what was at the top of his inbox.

_To: seanmcloughlink@gmail.com_

_From: mark.fischbach@gmail.com_

_Hey, I love my stache! I’ve always loved your work, and if you’re free in the future (possibly near future) maybe we could get together and plan something bigger? No rush on this one, probably just sending this in a haze of post-tattoo euphoria. Thanks again!!_

_Mark_

**Author's Note:**

> so, first published thingie on AO3! please be sure to comment and kudos if you liked it, and feel free to drop a message/request at my tumblr, chocolate-chip-crybaby.tumblr.com


End file.
